Dalry

The Cross

The small North
Ayrshire town of Dalry stands on the west bank of the River Garnock, almost
enclosed by a loop of rivers formed by the River Garnock to the east, the Rye
Water to the north, and the Caaf Water to the south. The Garnock Valley
traditionally offered the easiest overland route from
Glasgow to
Ayrshire, and Dalry
developed to serve the traffic along the route, as well as a focal point for
the wider rural area. Perhaps unusually, Dalry has never been bypassed by the
main road, and the A737 crosses the River Garnock north east of the town before
coming through it en route south towards
Kilwinning.

A sense of the transport links on the eve of the railway era can be
gained from part of Dalry's entry in an 1837 Ayrshire Directory produced by
Pigot & Co: 'To Glasgow the "Fair Trader" (from
Saltcoats) calls at the Crown Inn every morning (Sunday excepted) at eight; and
the "Herald" calls at the King's Arms every evening (Sunday excepted) at seven;
both through Beith and Paisley. To Saltcoats and Ardrossan the "Herald" (from
Glasgow) calls at the King's Arms every morning (Sunday excepted) at nine; and
the "Fair Trader" calls at the Crown Inn every evening (Sunday excepted) at
half past seven.'

The arrival of the Glasgow, Paisley Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway
(GPK&AR), which opened a station in Dalry on the main line along the
Garnock Valley in 1839, revolutionised overland transport. The coach services
were instantly uncompetitive, especially in terms of journey times, and the
railways began an era of supremacy that was only really challenged a century
later with the advent of widespread car ownership.

The lack of a bypass leaves Dalry a busier place than it would
otherwise be, and just how widespread car ownership has now become is
particularly obvious where the A737 passes through the edge of the town centre.

The centre itself however, remains very attractive. The Cross is a
broadening of the main street which you could readily imagine housing a
bustling medieval market. Today this is bounded on one side by St Margaret's
Church, built in the 1870s and apparently undergoing major refurbishment when
we visited. The other side of the square is home to some very attractive
buildings, including Trinity Church, built in 1857; the Clydesdale Bank
building, now home to an estate agents; and a particularly fine library, built
in 1853.

Heading south east from The Cross takes you down New Street, another
attractive shopping street. The highlight here is the carving on the central
gable of the Co-Operative building. It's not really matched by the modern lime
green branding of the shop, but is certainly worth looking out for. At the far
end of New Street is the Biggart Fountain. If you head north west from The
Cross you find yourself, until you reach the 1960s inner ring road, anyway, in
a street pattern that feels much more enclosed and much older; which certainly
repays a little exploration.

Dalry's earliest origins are unclear. The crossing over the Rye
Water seems to have been defended by a motte and bailey castle from medieval
times, though other castles or grand houses in the area are a little more
dispersed. The most notable is Blair Castle, which stands just over a mile to
the south east of the centre of Dalry. This may also have medieval origins,
though the earliest parts of the building on view today date back to the
beginning of the 1600s.

Dalry appears to have been operating a market by the 1680s. A map
produced in the mid 1700s shows a significant settlement here, and in the
following decades the substantial Drakemyre cotton mills were developed on the
Rye Water on the north side of Dalry.

As already mentioned, the railway arrived in 1839, and four years
later Dalry became a junction station when a branch line was completed from
here to Kilmarnock. For a
while this made Dalry an important station on the network, though its
importance diminished once a direct railway line had been built from
Glasgow to
Kilmarnock via
Stewarton in 1873.

In the meantime, Dalry had gained a steelworks at Blair, half a mile
east of the town, using ironstone and coal mined locally as its main raw
materials. Textiles also remained important to the local economy thanks to the
Bridgend woollen mills. The steelworks closed in the 1920s, and the last coal
mines followed in the late 1960s. It would be fair to say that by the 1970s the
local economy, and population levels, were depressed, to the point where the
town's secondary school closed in 1976.

Change for the better was on its way, however. Anyone approaching
Dalry from the north today will be only too aware that it is certainly not a
post-industrial town. Hoffman la Roche built a huge plant here in the early
1980s, which is now the largest producer of vitamin C in the world.